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Spencer Reid
"I find that I do some of my best work under intense terror." Dr. Spencer Reid is a Supervisory Special Agent with the BAU. He is hailed as a genius and an Autodidact. Background Spencer graduated from high school at age 12. In his youth, his father left him and his mother since his father could no longer deal with his mother's paranoid schizophrenia. He once mentioned that he was victim of bullying in school where he was stripped naked and tied to a goalpost in front of other students. After waiting for all the other teenagers to leave, he walked home, only to find that his mother had not noticed he was so late to return because she had been having one of her Schizophrenic episodes. Reid grew up learning nearly everything he knows from books, with his mother (a college professor) often reading to him. Still, Reid knew that the way his mother was living wasn't healthy. When he was eighteen, he had his mother, Diana Reid, placed in a mental institution. His mother still resides in that same mental institution and Reid has stated that he sends letters every day because of the guilt he feels for not visiting her. Reid is also worried about the fact that his mother's illness can be passed on genetically; he once told Morgan that "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind." Reid has an eidetic memory, meaning that he can remember an exceedingly large amount of information with extraordinary detail. This, however, only applies to information gathered visually (as implied with the word eidetic); he has not been so successful in auditory information, as evident when he once noted he could not remember "that new tech girl's name." On the Job Reid joined the BAU at the age of 22 ("Memoriam"). One of his first cases was that of The Blue Ridge Strangler (Tabula Rasa). Though he went to the FBI academy, he had trouble with just about everything that wasn't book-related, including marksmanship, physical training and obstacle course. In the end, they had to make special exceptions to get him into the field (What Happens at Home). After being kidnapped by Tobias Hankel, and continuously injected with Dilaudid--which caused hallucinations of his past--Reid developed an addiction problem. This problem was discovered by Hotch and Gideon over time, as well as an old friend of Reid's in New Orleans. He has since become clean; in Elephant's Memory, he attended a support group meeting for addicts in law enforcement; it was called the Beltway Clean Cops. He said he'd been experiencing cravings recently and spoke of the teenage suspect shot in front of him before being interrupted by a page from work. He was surprised to find one of his superiors attending the same meeting. The older agent, named "John"At substance abuse meetings, fellow addicts simply refer to each other by their first names; a way to ensure anonymity and equality., loaned Reid his one year sobriety coin, making Reid promise that he would return once he earned his own. He is still very particular about staying clean, as seen in Amplification when he strictly refused to take any kind of painkillers after being infected by anthrax. In the season 3 episode Damaged he managed to save himself and Hotch by delaying Chester Hardwick (who intended to kill them as a way to evade the execution of his death sentence) giving him his profile. When the situation had been diffused, he stated that he didn't know if the profile was accurate, thus revealing it had been improvised on the spot using his encyclopedic knowledge. He also stated that he does some of his best work when under 'intense terror'. In the season 4 episode Minimal Loss, he and Prentiss are held hostage by a cult led by a polygamist resulting in him feeling guilty over his fellow agent getting beaten by the cult leader. In The Instincts a young boy disappears and it leads Reid to some questions about his own past. In "52 Pickup", Reid won a date with a bartender while investigating a serial killer. On Morgan's advice (who told him "chicks dig magic tricks"), he performed an impressive illusion with a pen and a flier showing a police sketch of the Unsub. The bartender would later call him and ask him out, though nothing appears to have come of it. In Nameless, Faceless (the Season Five premiere), Reid is shot in the leg by an unsub while protecting a doctor whom the killer had targeted. It is a non-life-threatening wound, and Reid tells the doctor to treat the unsub instead of him. In the next episode, Haunted, he carried crutches. Later in the season he moved on to use a cane and continued doing so until the episode The Uncanny Valley. In "100", Reid manages to figure out that George Foyet is using the alias "Peter Rhea", which is an anagram of "The Reaper". The team finds out Rhea's address and storms his apartment, only to find that Foyet had posted an internet alert on the name Peter Rhea (to alert him if the name was ever investigated), and has disappeared. In Corazón, Reid began suffering powerful headaches as well as hallucinatory episodes while working the case. In the end of the episode, he goes to see a doctor, who finds nothing physically wrong with him, suggesting it may be a psychosomatic disorder. Terrified of having inherited his mother's schizophrenia, he vehemently denies this and storms out of the office. He appears to be well in the following episodes, though in Coda, he is seen carrying a book about migraines. In Valhalla, he tells Prentiss about his headaches. In With Friends Like These..., Reid tells about his problems to Morgan, remarking that he only read five books the previous week. Notes * In Masterpiece it is revealed that he holds PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering and BAs in Psychology and Sociology. Was working on receiving a BA in Philosophy and may have gotten it by now. In Big Sea, he also displays some knowledge of forensic anthropology, being able to determine the sex and race of the skeletal remains (he was able to identify the gender of a skeleton as early as "The Popular Kids" in season 1). * Reid has an IQ of 187 and can read 20,000 words per minute (Extreme Aggressor). * Like many "brainiac" types, Reid tends to ramble on when the conversation leads to a subject with which he is very familiar. This tendency is somewhat annoying to his peers and they often politely shut him up with a blank stare. (Sometimes they shut him up in a not-so-polite manner). * Went to public school in Las Vegas, and was frequently bullied. * He is an avid Star Trek and Star War''s fan. * Likes soap operas (P911). * Is a skilled illusionist (52 Pickup). * His sidearm was a Glock 19. Since Season Four he carries a Smith & Wesson Model 65 Revolver . * His car is a Volvo Amazon P130 122s (circa 1965). It appears to be horizon blue (but was only seen in the dark in season 3 episode "In Name and Blood") * He was infected with a bio-engineered strain of anthrax in season 4 "Amplification " but managed to find the antidote (saving himself and others who were afflicted); While thinking he might die, he recorded a voice message for his mother (there was no message to his father so it is assumed he has not fully mended that relationship). * He hates creamed spinach (The Boogeyman) but likes Indian food (in one of the episodes he tried to invite his team members to try a new Indian restaurant he found; in the season 7 finale "Supply and Demand" he invited them to go to an Indian restaurant that was out of the way but had good chicken tandoori). * Is an avid coffee drinker. His mom thinks that's why he is so skinny. In Rite of Passage, he stated that if coffee was to be cut, he'd quit the BAU (Rossi teased that he spends at least $50 a week on it). Ironically, for many of the season 6 episodes Reid did not appear to drink coffee; in one episode he was drinking green tea instead. * He has trouble using chopsticks and says using them is like trying to forage for food with a pair of number two pencils. * He is good at playing cards and won over $2,000 while playing on a machine in Las Vegas, but he let a "hooker" keep his winnings (Memoriam) * Reid did not see his extranged father, William Reid, for 17 years; William left when Spencer was ten years old. In "Revelations " his excuse was that Diana Reid could no longer take care of herself and he couldn't help her anymore. In Memoriam it was revealed that he also felt guilty over his part in covering up a murder in which he feared Diana would be implicated; after leaving he felt that he did not know how to be a father to young Spencer so he never returned. Just like Gideon, William said goodbye with a letter rather than in person. * Reid's leg injury was originally unplanned, but had to be written in because of Matthew Gray Gubler's real-life severe knee injury which left him unable to walk for over four months. After a third surgery in September, Gubler started using a cane, but was unable to walk normally for the next few months. As of December 2009 Matthew Gray Gubler was once again able to walk unassisted. * Dr. Reid appeared with only one crutch in the Season Five episode Outfoxed then he was using a crutch in 100. He was able to walk unassisted for the first time in The Uncanny Valley and again in Risky Business. * Killed two unsubs in his career (not with his sidearm): Phillip Dowd (Hotch's backup weapon) and Tobias Hankel (Reid's abductor; Reid took his gun and killed him with it). * In Nameless, Faceless Reid shot someone for the first time with his own firearm, but it was not a fatal shot (the man he shot had already shot Reid in the leg and was going to shoot again) * As of the end of Season Five, Reid has cut his hair, and action which prompted Hotch to ask, "What, are you in a boy band now?" * In The Internet Is Forever, Reid claims not to have email, though it was shown in Cradle to Grave that he does. * Is afraid of the dark "because of the inherent absence of light". (The Boogeyman) * Loves Halloween (About Face and Devil's Night) * Reid's dissertation from Caltech's Department of Engineering was titled ''Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression (Memoriam) References Category:Criminal Minds Characters Category:Main Characters